Chapter 7
Elissa was rather quiet after all that. Elric knew what he’d asked her to do wasn’t easy. Let alone the sudden power that now flowed through her veins or the fact that she had a wide-open crack down the center of her chest. Such changes were a lot to get used to.
He hated that he even worried about her. He shouldn’t care what a witch was feeling or thinking. He was their god. She had asked him to do something, and now she had to live with the consequences.
And yet, he worried when she took them behind the cottage, where there were a few outbuildings.
Like tiny cottages, they must serve as guest quarters for anyone the witch allowed to stay.
Three miniature versions of her cottage, and she didn’t even explain what they were.
She just stood there, staring blankly at her feet for a few moments before she seemed to shake herself out of a daze.
“You can stay here,” she said, her voice a little rough. “My mother made these before she died. They are perfectly protected.”
“Where are you going to stay?” Jessamine asked.
“I’ll stay with Sarah. I want to be there when she wakes up so she can… Well, so she doesn’t feel so alone.”
“Right.”
They all watched the new witch turn toward her home before pausing. “Each room should be tailored to what you need. There are few spells remaining around this house, ever since the crown started making it known that magic wasn’t welcome here. But that one is still very much alive and well.”
And with that, she disappeared back into the main house.
Sybil quickly entered the cottage at the very end, leaving the middle one for Elric and Jessamine in the next. He stood there, a bit unsure of where to go until he looked over at Jessamine’s soft smile.
She looked right at him and said, “Good night, Elric.”
She always called him by his name. Not Deathless One, no honorary title or even referring to him as a god. To her, he was just Elric.
And that made up his mind. After everything they had done today, he didn’t want to be alone. And if he was reading her expression correctly, neither did she.
The door to his own cottage forgotten, he followed her to the farthest cottage.
Jessamine hadn’t closed the door behind her, as though she knew he would follow her like a moth to a flame.
And why wouldn’t he? When there was so much comfort in each other, there was no way he was going to let her wander too far from his side.
The room within had indeed changed to reflect Jessamine’s desires.
He recognized the soft creature comforts from her memories.
A four-poster feather bed with a blanket of the lightest blue filled most of the space, and a warm fire already crackled in the hearth made of pristine white stone.
And then there was the mirror. A massive, well-over-seven-foot-tall mirror took up a good portion of the back wall right beside a warm wooden vanity.
She sat down at the vanity, already pulling her hair over her shoulder. She looked so prim and proper sitting there like that. All he wanted was to run his fingers through those strands and muss it all over again.
He much preferred his little hellion. The witch who had come to life under his touch and burned with need just as she burned with power was far more intriguing than the princess who expected him to bend a knee to her desires. But, he supposed, he did quite like the princess as well.
She opened the drawer, a curious expression on her face as she drew out a silver-handled brush. “Would you mind?”
He was a god. He had brought kingdoms to the ground and forced kings to bow on their hands and knees before him. Elric had seen countless people die, begging him to save them, and he had not done a single thing to help.
But if this woman asked him to brush her hair, then he would damn well brush her hair.
He lulled her into relaxation as he brought the brush through the very ends first, making sure that he didn’t tug too hard on any of the knots that were there from days of travel.
But he watched her in the mirror, keeping his gaze on the beauty of her expression as she tilted her head back into him.
Her eyes drifted shut, that long neck with its silver scar bared to his rapturous gaze.
She made a little hum in the back of her throat, and everything in him tensed.
What was it about this woman? She barely even had to exist, and he was hard as stone. He wanted her every moment of the day. From the first morning look, when she teased him with those long lashes, to the end of the day, when she was bone tired and yet still trusted him to take care of her.
Elric had never experienced this heady emotion in his many lifetimes. Everything about her was a siren song he didn’t know how to escape.
“You look beautiful,” he murmured, leaning down to press his lips to her neck. “Absolutely delicious, princess.”
“Delicious?”
“I would like nothing more than to feast upon you.”
He looked into the mirror to see her smiling. She lifted her hand, reaching up to place those delicate fingers on the back of his head. Together, they were a picture of wanton desire. Her cheeks burnished with a red stain, the deep hollows of her collarbone calling out for him to taste.
Dragging his hand down her raised arm, he held her gaze as his fingers met the buttons that dotted down the front of her bodice.
The red on her cheeks became more pronounced as he popped one button, then the next, dancing down the entire line until her bodice sagged open.
He slowly slid his hand underneath the fabric.
They both sighed at the first touch of skin on skin. He hadn’t seen her in such a long time. They’d been busy, yes, but he would have taken her every single day, multiple times, if she’d let him.
Keeping his gaze on hers in the mirror, he flicked his thumb over her nipple, circling the peak until it became hard enough to see through the thin fabric.
“I want to touch you,” he murmured against her throat. “I want to hear those little noises you make when you’re so close to shattering. I want to feel you come wrapped around me like a fist.”
“Then kiss me, Elric.”
She’d already tilted her face toward him.
All he had to do was seal his lips over hers and his restraint immediately snapped.
His grip on her tightened. He wrapped his free hand around her neck, holding her in place so she had to endure the fervor of his need as he claimed and devoured her lips.
His hand slid down her stomach, feeling the muscles tense there as he pushed her bodice down to the skirts around her waist.
“All of it,” he growled against her mouth. “Take all of it off.”
He wasn’t sure who stood first, only that they did. He ripped his shirt over his head, tossing his pants down as quickly as he could until they were standing naked before each other. Bare as they were the first time.
This was different. They weren’t drowning in the adrenaline of a successful battle. They weren’t in a magical cave where they were wild and free to be themselves.
They were here, together, in a bedroom with soft firelight that turned her skin from pale to pristine marble.
Her dark hair had been brushed into a waterfall that fell over her shoulders, the dark locks glistening like oil poured over water.
She was beyond stunning. She was beauty incarnate, and he had never seen a creature such as this.
The shadows between her ribs called to him.
The dusty pink of her nipples made his mouth water, and the dark thatch of hair that hid her from his sight made him want to throw her to the ground and claim her with animalistic need.
“Elric,” she whispered, perhaps growing a little uncomfortable with his staring. “Would you like me to get onto the bed?”
“No,” he growled, his voice barely recognizable. “No, I want you to come over here, turn that ass to me, and hold on to the bedpost.”
“The post?”
But she did as he said. She walked over to him and turned, her hands wrapping around the post. The mirror gave him the perfect angle to watch her.
He could see everything from where he stood.
Her pretty face and the bright red flush traveling down to her chest. And all he had to do was glance down to admire the round peach of her ass and the delicate arch of her spine.
She met his gaze in the mirror and held on to the post without him having to remind her. It made her back arch so perfectly, with a little shadow in the dip, and he had to plant his hand there. He had to put his palm right in that hollow she’d created.
He said nothing. He just kept his gaze locked with hers as he slowly sank to his knees behind her. Pressing her down, giving him the best view in the world as she leaned just right.
The visuals were the first thing he had to give up, but he was graced instead with her taste. He buried himself in her, licking through her folds as her flavor exploded on his tongue. She was salty and earthy and everything a woman should be.
Her moan echoed in his ears. The perfect sound. The only sound that he wanted to hear as the faintest creak from the bedpost warned him that her grip had tightened.
Elric worked her as though he were a dying man. He needed her to know that he adored her. That of all the witches he would meet, she was forever the one that he wanted. The only one who made him feel like a person, and so he poured those feelings into her flesh.
Every lick, every suck, every lingering stroke of his tongue was made to make her addicted to him. He didn’t give her a break. Not when her legs started to shake, nor when her knees buckled. He just wrapped his arm around her hips and held her there until she shrieked his name.
He could feel her pulsing, just as he said he’d wanted to. Clenching around his tongue, but that wasn’t even enough. So he buried two fingers inside of her as well, right at the peak of her orgasm, and savored the sudden choked sound she made and how her entire body sagged into him.
“Perfect,” he muttered against her skin, pressing a kiss to the back of each thigh. “Truly perfect.”
“Elric,” she whimpered, regaining her footing.
But he wasn’t done with her. Not yet. So he straightened behind her, repositioning her hands so she was upright again. Holding on to her hip with one hand, he gripped himself with the other and met her gaze in the mirror.
“Look at yourself,” he said, notching the head of his cock against her folds. “Watch how beautiful you are when you take me.”
Her mouth dropped open and her eyes rolled back in her head as he sank into her, inch by warm, wet inch. He took his time indulging himself. He wanted to feel her this time. There was no rush, no hurry. He wanted this moment to be imprinted on their minds forever.
“Eyes on our reflection, Jessamine.” He gathered her hair in his hand, tugging her head back so she was forced to look at the mirror. Those pretty dark eyes were so wide, so needy, as he drew out of her.
“Try harder,” he said as her eyes drifted shut again. He wanted her to see them. To watch them. To see the absolute vision of their pleasure as he slammed back in.
They both groaned together, the guttural sounds so perfect in the still quiet of the room.
Raw and unbound, he fucked her. Pounding against those pretty round globes and watching her blush spread over her entire body.
She was breathing hard now, and so was he.
The sway of her body, the way she took him so well, even the way she looked in the mirror and fought so hard to keep her eyes open. All of it captivated him.
“Give it to me,” he rasped. “All of it, princess.”
She clenched around him, so hard it made him see stars, and then he could feel her exploding around him. Every tiny grasp of her muscles, every twitch of her body that surrounded him.
Elric tumbled into pleasure after her, incapable of denying what her body wanted from him.
He pulsed deep inside her, one fist holding her hair like reins and his other clutching her hip, perhaps a little too tight.
By all the magic in this realm, she made him feel like he was so much more than just a god of the dead.
Breathing hard, he released her hair in favor of her throat as he gently drew her back to standing. Leaning her back against his chest, he took all of her weight with an arm around her waist.
“You did so well,” he murmured against her shoulder. “So well.”
“I don’t even know my own name right now,” she replied. The sound of her laughter was music to his ears, but it still wasn’t quite enough.
Some dark part of him cried out for more.
He needed excess from her, from this. He wasn’t reassured that this was real between them.
After all they had done today, after all he had done, he needed to know that she didn’t look at him any differently.
He had played the role of god perhaps a little too well, but to her, he never wanted to be that.
So he guided her to the bed, arranging her body comfortably with her head on a pillow and the blankets pulled away from her overheated skin. She gave him a sleepy smile as he coasted his hand along her ribs, but her sweet expression turned into a frown as he lowered himself between her legs.
“What are you doing?” she asked, those brows furrowed.
“I am a god, Jessamine. Do you really think I would be satisfied by that alone?” He knew the smile on his face was wolfish. “Relax, gravesinger. Let me take care of you.”
Though her muscles were loose, he felt them tense again when he gave her another long, slow lick. Poor thing, he didn’t intend to be finished with her for a few hours yet, at least. Even then, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get enough.